Hypnogogia
by squidhouse
Summary: Ryou holds the ring in his hands.


**a/n Hello! This is a piece I wrote last year… Slight warning for violent imagery. Hope you enjoy!**

Ryou holds the ring in his hands.

He turns it around, rubbing his fingers over the cool metal. The points are sharper than he thought they would be, and he pricks his thumb on one. It turns his skin red, but doesn't draw blood. He sucks on the wounded tip absentmindedly, running his other hand over the surface of the ring.

It's… heavy. And old. And despite that, the massive thing shines like it were brand new. The ancient weight to it, the flawless gleaming exterior, the promise of a story to it… enthrals him.

He slips it over his neck.

Mistake number one.

Their skin prickles in the cold chill of the empty room. For a moment, Ryou feels someone else's hands under his, holding onto him desperately, pulling him downwards to lift something else up. Someone else. A chill goes down Ryou's spine.

Ryou's eyes sparkle as he holds up the ring, now hung around his neck like a prize. "Are you possessed?" he asks it. "That would be amazing."

He begins to lift the ring off of his neck again, but an alarm goes off, the bright ringing of the clock on his desk. "Oh, I have to go to school!" he says to himself, the ring swaying across his chest as he hastily pulls his backpack on.

He doesn't have friends.

The other children don't even watch him with menace; Ryou is just another face in the room that nobody pays mind to. He taps his fingers on the side of the desk, watching the trees sway in the wind outside instead of listening to the teacher.

The teacher calls out a page number to read from, and as Ryou shifts to open his book, a sharp, cool stab to his chest startles him into letting the book fall out of his hands. Its pages flutter wildly as his heartbeat hops up, but he manages to keep his mouth shut. A student sitting next to him glances at him, confused. Ryou stares back blankly at them, and they look away, shy of eye contact. Ryou gulps down his nervousness, thankful the teacher didn't notice.

I forgot, I'm still wearing the ring, he realizes. The metal has warmed up against his skin, giving goosebumps up and down his arms. Eyes downcast, he finds the page in his book and pretends to read as the teacher gives her lecture.

His head is heavy, a thick pond of hazy focus filling his eyes and ears. It weighs against his shoulders, pressing him down, and he rests his head against his hands to keep himself up. Like clawmarks against his chest, the ring is pressed between his desk and body, but even the pain doesn't register enough to keep him awake. With a soft thud, his head hits the table, and the echo of someone's voice is the last thing he hears.

"Give in," it urges, warmly, dryly, like the hot desert. It leaves his throat parched, and Ryou can't resist even if he wanted. Like an embrace, like being stolen away- not as a child to be protected, but as an object, Ryou gives in.

Many moons decorate the sky, softly golden and green in the night light is the room before him, with no walls, and only pillars to keep up a blanketed ceiling of stars.

There is red everywhere, an inky, rusty red that clings to his feet and fills the air. A figure is sat at the bottom of a wide staircase, with only enough steps to reach a throne.

"Hello," Ryou says.

"Come closer," says the young man, his robes like sheets, and yet Ryou feels no comfort in their bloodstained color. The young man smiles, his eyes filled with darkened malice.

Ryou closes the space between them, idly walking without looking, breathing without smelling the iron. The gold steps wobble uncertainly, and he does not dare rest on them.

"Hello," Ryou says again.

The young man lifts his arm towards Ryou, and Ryou moves back from him. The young man does not frown so much as his grin flattens, his teeth showing slightly. "Let me touch you. Let me see the ring."

"Why?" asks Ryou. "It's mine."

The young man throws his head back and laughs. "It's okay, boy. You can… trust me."

Ryou frowns, pouting slightly as the young man's eyes hungrily take in his image. Ryou covers his chest with his arms. "Why should I?"

The young man sneers slightly, but grins as he relaxes back, sitting into the stairs. He looks up at Ryou like a dying, dehydrated man might look at a mirage, barely concealed by the forced ease of his smile. "I just want to grant your wish," the young man says.

"My wish?"

"Yes, I know your deepest desire," he says, shrugging.

"I don't need anything," Ryou says. "You're lying."

The young man laughs again, a deep, hollow sound from his chest. "Don't be foolish. Nobody needs anything. But I know what you desire, and I can make it come true."

Ryou swallows down a knot in his throat. The tone with which the young man speaks puts him on edge, something that seems to devour him with just a look. He cannot place the emotion, but he remembers learning about large cats who stalk their prey. He feels surrendered to an inevitable attack that has yet to come. "Then- then tell me. What do you think I want?"

"To stop feeling lonely," the young man says. An ache blooms into Ryou's chest, but not sharp like the ring- this ache is long and swaying, an ocean that crashes again and again into his ribs and bursts from his eyes. Everyone has left him. Everyone.

Ryou hiccups his tears down. "No-" he starts to protest, but the young man shakes his head, a twisted gleeful look on his lips.

"I can change that for you," he promises eagerly. "If you listen to me, I will make sure nobody will ever leave you again. Isn't that what you want?"

Ryou is drowning. Unable to speak, he nods hastily.

The young man stands up. "Ah, but that's the thing," he says, striding over to Ryou. "I need the ring to grant your wish. Won't you give it to me?"

Ryou shakes as the young man places his hand hot against Ryou's chest, tearing into his skin. The ring, buried deep within his body flies out between the crevice between his ribs, burning hot and bright in the dim room. "Give it to me," the young man says again, "Give it to me. Give in."

The young man has reached deep inside Ryou's chest and seems to walk through him, and their arms twist and shake violently, and Ryou can't tell which is his body anymore. The room melts away, a molten spark that shatters into dust, and Ryou is clawing at their arms, their neck, their sides, and gravity rushes into his head. He falls over to the carpet of his bedroom, his shoulders crashing against his bedframe, his head squashed between his floor and the underside of his bed. He smells blood on his gums and tears well up in his eyes. The room is blurry.

Panting, he catches his breath before inching out from under the bed and sitting upright, and his head hurts even worse than when he was crushed under a fallen bookcase when he was little. He wipes the tears from his eyes and straightens out his shirt.

"What…" he grumbles, rubbing his face. His game pieces are out, a mess on the floor; the sky outside his window is dark.

With a sigh, he starts to pick up the game set. "Is it still Sunday?" he says aloud, yawning. "How funny, I dreamt about school…" He holds up an unfamiliar game piece in his hand. It looks like the student from class who stared at him when he dropped his book, a girl with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

"See?"

Ryou drops the piece, jumping forward in his shock as a voice breathes into his ear. A pit in his stomach fills with oozy guilt.

"Who-" Ryou starts to shout, but as he looks from side to side, nobody can be found in his room.

"See?" the voice says again, more stern this time. Ryou, vividly, clearly feels someone's arms draped over his body. "They'll never leave you now."


End file.
